When you are using the zoom feature in the motion control window, you can also use the program monitor to resize the image.

So, on your picture select the motion control option. Then on the program monitor (right hand side), some handles should appear around the frame of the monitor. Simply click and drag on one so that the image is resized to fit the screen.

Cheers,

Hi Will,

In order to export a 5.1 surround mix I beleive it needs to be AC3 audio. PP lets you have 2 goes at doing this, after which you have to purcahse the plugin to continue using it.

Encore should be able to accept AC3 audio, also Premiere should be able to burn directly from the timeline to DVD.

PCM audio is a high quality stereo audio file (It does not contain 5.1)

Thanks,

Cool man. I'll check those out.

You know what.. I have sorensen squeeze 4. Can I export from Premiere using squeeze? Or, maybe I could render out an uncompressed avi and then use squeeze to convert to wmv maybe?

Just to confirm Ed's points.

5.1 audio on a DVD is usually AC3 (or occasionally DTS). But PCM is only stereo.

Premiere Pro cannot encode to AC3 itself - it can only do so only through the Surcode Plugin which costs (!) extra.

There is no technical problem in using a separate program to encode your audio. For example, you can easily export 6 separate wav files from premiere, encode those with a separate encoder, and then pull the resulting AC3 file back into Encore which will mux it back together with your video stream. All of the commercial encoders are costly because of licencing, but there is this: http://dspguru.notrace.dk/

Be aware that there are various flavors of AC3. Some low-end DVD authoring packages advertise that they "encode to AC3" but its stereo (2.0) not surround (5.1) AC3 that they produce.

Another way to do this:

Shoot many takes, with the people walking down one side of the screen, then another part of the scene, then another. In post production, you can combine all the takes.

I think the problem with that is there's going to be a gap between the actors in the different takes. If you don't want the gap then you can get the actors/extras to be closer together and you may have to rotoscope (very time consuming). You will also need an effects supervisor while shooting to make sure you avoid problems that would take a lot of effort to fix in post. You may also be able to capture into a laptop and quickly throw together the effect to see if it's working.

I'm not too sure on the exact details of this as I have never done it. However I do know it's done on some high-end commercials.

Thanks for letting us know! Glad your problem was solved, and at the same time I'm pleased to learn of the plug-in.

Check the Adobe site
 

SWEET!!

Thanks a lot man.

I’m very new to all of this and I’m not really following it, can I do all of those things with the Adobe Video Collection software? And is there a website that explains all of these things?

Thank you, gentlemen. I've tried BeSweet, but it will not open a file exported from PPro unless I break up the 5.1 into 6 separate files. However, I've read widely that after BeSweet converts those 6 files into AC3 the result is 5.1 audio at a very low volume level, so I have not gone that route.

I will try the link you suggested: http://dspguru.notrace.dk/

Thank you.

Hi folks,

It has been a while since I played with exporting multi-channel audio, but I do THINK you should be able to get your 5.1 onto DVD.

Since the Surcode trial only give you three tries, I'd export from PPro (and possibly Audition for the audio) in an uncompressed AVI that has multichannel PCM audio, or as separate (multichannel PCM) audio and video files. Then import into Encore, transcode, and transcode/burn. You should be able to use either AC3 (and thus burning up a trial run of Surcode), or to multichannel PCM.

I'm not 100% sure, but from what I can recall, PCM isn't inherently stereo audio -- it is required as a format that DVD players worldwide can read -- BUT output through most PC audio systems gets downmixed to stereo.

Limited time right now so not able to check into this, but perhaps in this evening I can dig into it a little again and refresh my memory.

Hey Guys I just found a box in the video capture prefrences window I think and it asks if you want ppro to fit the images. I tried it and it worked great. I had also resized like you Guys said and that went well also. The reason I got the chance to try the box was when rendering ppro just shut down. Well I've been used to that so it turned into a learning experience. Now that thats done im off to try to export to a dvd. Thanks again TAG

Yes, Surcode works fine. I've produced one DVD containing 5.1 audio. It sounded fabulous, but not fabulous enough for me to plunk down $300 for Surcode. I understand that this is cheap as far as AC3 encoders go, but not cheap as far as my budget goes.

>>>BeSweet it will not open a file exported from PPro unless I break up the 5.1 into 6 separate files.

Correct. That's the way all the standalone surround encoders that I'm familiar with work.... it doesnt really slow the process down much - just a few extra mouseclicks.

There's an ongoing debate about 'correct' AC3 volume - not sure where the latest version of BSweet is with that.

>>>PCM isn't inherently stereo audio

Correct again - what I was meaning to say is that the PCM audio stream on a DVD player cannot provide true 5.1 audio; the spec calls for AC3 or DTS.

still no adobe response...
 

Hi John, Perhaps you have had a chance to duplicate the functionality that I referred to earlier?
It's minor, but I think a sensible direction toward effortless keyframe placement.